Marcia Cross has always struck me as one of those very careful mothers – not quite as Stepford Wife as her character on Desperate Housewives, but she dresses Eden and Savannah, her two-year-old twins, in matching outfits and always seems put together. In an interview with People, she says that it’s a little scary how articulate her girls are, and that she has taught them to be very vocal.

“They are big talkers,” Cross told PEOPLE at Mott’s and Feeding America charity event in New York Monday. “They happen to be very verbal girls and I think that comes from me. Their mom is pretty verbal.”

Now that her girls, who turned 2 last month, can express themselves, Cross, 46, enjoys every minute engaging them in conversation. “It’s wonderful that they can tell me what’s going on with them and have conversations. I just love it,” said the Desperate Housewives star. “When we go to the park one of my daughters will say, ‘The dog scares me mamma.’ Or after their birthday party a few weeks ago, one of them said, ‘Too many people mamma.’ ”

In fact, they seem to have inherited their mother’s tendency to talk things over. “Recently both my daughters were sitting on the steps in our home, and one of them said, ‘Let’s talk about it mamma,’ ” recalled the Emmy-nominated actress. “I thought, where did they learn that? Then I realized it was from me. I thought, Oh my God, what have I done to them at 2 years old?”

She also talks about only feeding her daughters organic, healthy food, and the fact that her girls don’t know what cookies are – though they got a bite of an organic cupcake at their birthday.

At home, making sure her own children eat healthy foods is a high priority for Cross. “I keep them away from junk food. They don’t know about cookies yet so everything they eat is healthy,” she said. “They’ve had a bite of an organic cupcake for their birthday but it’s always healthy foods – especially now before they find out about junk food.”

It’s important to feed your kids the right kind of food, but you can’t keep them away from junk food forever. It’s critical to instill a love of healthy foods, so that they won’t binge on ice cream and chips, but will reach for nutritious things when they want a snack. Denying your kids unhealthy food completely isn’t the answer because eventually they’ll rebel. Still, we’re talking about 2-year-olds here, and at that age they don’t have much say over their food intake anyway. The girls sound (and look) absolutely adorable, and it’s nice to hear someone talk about their kids in a realistic way, unlike Jennifer Lopez, whose publicist fed her some lines to tell the press.

Sadly, though Marcia finds a lot of joy in her children, her husband has been diagnosed with what may be terminal cancer. Our thoughts go out to her and her family.

Here’s Marcia taking Savannah and Eden to the Santa Monica Pier to play with the games in the amusement park on March 7th. Images thanks to Fame.com.

Oh lord, no offense to the parents out there but I have not come across one parent that has admitted… “yea I think my kid is slow”. No, every comment from a parent regarding thier child involves complimenting how gifted their children are in some way. which is to be expected… but article worthy… I rather read a an article of paris hilton being chased by a tiger shark but the ozz that leaked out of her vagina caused whales, fishes, and marine animals to chemically combust

I really like her too. And I find myself thinking that she’s absolutely beautiful everytime desperate housewives is on.
The whole junk food vs organic is a good idea. I don’t remember eating junk food a lot when I was a kid, and whenever I’d go to the states I’d fill up on oreos, fruit roll ups, apple jacks (yum, straight from the box) and all the immense amount of junk available. But once I left and came back home, I would crave healthy regular home cooked meals again, with which I’d been raised. Junk food would barely occur to me until I went back to the states again.

it’s annoying when people say you might as well give them junk food b/c that is ‘reality’.[which,btw,is POISON. Paints/dyes,chemicals--it is literally poison and addictive poison,at that. Even refined sugar is poison. No,not just a little is okay...Not to say that any of us subscribe to none,but let's just be honest about what is really IS.]….
So,why give them poison b/c that’s what everyone else is eating? Are we part of the group think,or what?!? How does any change get initiated?
That said,no,don’t complete cut them off b/c that creates rebellion.
But educating and making clear how they have a choice….those are key.
My son will say ‘oh,there’s paint in this lollipop’ that he has somewhere. And he also has experienced first hand getting sick from some thing he ate too much of that wasn’t healthy to begin with. I believe in him experiencing first-hand,so he can make his own decisions. [within reason,of course...]But he is saavy,and he can see other children’s eating patterns and make discernible correlations about them.
Also,a couple of years ago,he told me he’s ‘not really a movie theater kind of guy. The food’s junk,it hurts my stomach,the movie’s loud,and what’s so great about sitting in the dark,when you cannot stop the movie,take a break and go back to it,or get more snacks when you want them.’
Hah. The part about the food is junk cracked me up,b/c that was his own thing….

i love marcia cross and think she is so gorgeous. i agree about the junk food thing. it drives me crazy that my boyfriends family gives his 15 month old son soo many cookies and fries and chicken tenders. (doesnt help that the sons mom is overweight with bad eating habits…who knows what they feed him over there)

I only feed my daughter organic baby food which is difficult because I have to travel an hour and a half away to find it. My theory is that I’ll stuff her full of the good stuff while I can.
Which isn’t to say that she hasn’t had a taste of banana pudding and other stuff.
My husband’s family is always trying to give her food and it makes me kind of angry because right now, if she doesn’t know about it she won’t miss it!
It drives me insane to watch wife swap because there is always one family that allows their kids all the junk food they want and as a result they’re always overweight.
I do like how Marcia is also very careful with their skin. My daughter is also a red head with pale skin and sun protection is a big deal.

As crazy as it sounds, it’s still possible to provide a healthy diet for your children without “going organic.” I’m not saying organic is a bad thing by any stretch, but those of us on a budget have been relying on regular old fruits, veggies, etc, for generations, and have managed to survive. Thrive, even.

jess: My point is that even though they’re “genetically modified” as you put it, they can still be healthy. And the bigger statement is that organic food is more expensive than regular products, so many families opt for the latter for financial reasons.

I don’t really know much about all the organic stuff but I just feel better feeding my baby organic food.
Regular fruits and vegetables are a lot healthier than some of the things I’ve seen other people give their kids. Chocolate for a four month old. Soda in a sippy cup. I want to say something but I don’t want to come across as a Holier-than-thou mommy.

Well la-dee-dad-dee-da, if you make her kind of money in this economy you can afford to feed your kids that hideously over-priced organic food. she comes across as one of those anal retentive yuppy parents who has already picked out what college her kids will go to and schedules play-dates weeks in advance.

i am a junk food addict, and don’t think a little junky food is going to kill anyone, but good for her in at least keeping them eating healthy while she has all the control. she can afford to feed them all organic, many people can’t.

My mom tried to keep me from eating sweets when I was a baby/toddler, until some stupid female relative introduced me to chocolate cake at one of my birthdays. It would have been nice if success could have lasted longer with that, because I eat way too many sweets now.

I do NOT agree with the idea that you shouldn’t deny your young children junk food. You have the opportunity to almost singularly mold their tastes up until around kindergarten (when they’ll be more exposed), and they’re not going to feel upset if they don’t know what they’re ‘missing’. At least that way, their brain thrived on healthier food, and at least there’s a *chance* that they might have an aversion to binging on sweet/crap food when they have the opportunity to decide.

I have a personalized rant boiling inside me, but I will resist for now.

It’s not being a snob etc to eat organic. It means you’re lucky enough to be able to afford it.

I can’t buy everything organic but try as much as I can for fruits and vegetables, esp ones notorious for having pesticides all over them. I want organic because I know there aren’t chemicals on them.

I hate when people say the person is some snob who can be dismissed for eating organic etc. I wish our normal food could be trusted to not be made with chemcals that only the more well to do can afford to eat without chemcials. A real shame.

Depending on what part of the country you live in, organic foods are not all that much more expensive than the other stuff.

I didn’t focus so much on organic produce as I did on organic local meat and dairy. I am a vegetarian, but my husband is not, and we agreed to raise our daughter omnivore until such time as she decides for herself.

I INSISTED on my daughter never coming into contact with non-organic meat and dairy. I didn’t do this because I’m a snob (and my husband was a corporal in the USMC when my daughter was born…so we were NOT wealthy back then). I did it because I am educated about industrial farming and the health ramifications of feeding children the poisons and hormones present in those products. I won’t even get into the moral issues I have with non-organic (and even some organic farms) treatment of the animals they raise and keep for milk products.

For the record, my daughter eats cookies and candy pretty frequently…but she also LOVES vegetables and fruits because she was raised that way and was not offered a smorgasbord of unhealthy snacks. She’s the only kid I know who has to be told, “No, Dear…you need to eat three bites of the starch/protein item before you can have seconds of broccoli.”

My mom kept me from all junk food and candy till I was about 4 or 5. Then other people started introducing it and she couldn’t totally control it, although I was never permitted to have a lot of snacks. Now that I’m an adult, I can’t have those things around or I will eat them all at one time. I think it’s important to teach kids how to enjoy treats without eating them all the time or overdoing it.

when my “baby” really was a baby, we fed him only organic & soy milk. it was easy then, but as hes getting older he sees that me & dada dont eat all organic & he wants hat we have! of course he NEVER gets soda, candy, sugary juice, etc. but we def. give him chicken tenders & stuff like that. I dotn think shes being a “yuppy” for choosing the all organic diet. i used to get a lot of flack from some family though when i told them the little one was eating only organic. i couldnt stand it! so good for her for sticking to it!

I think feeding kids a healthy diet is a great idea, but agree with codzilla that buying all organic foods is impractical for a lot of families. I’m also marginally suspicious of the “organic” label, could any company slap it on a product? Are there specific (and monitored) requirements a product must meet before it’s labeled organic? I like shopping at local farmer’s markets, but my cynical ass is leery of the entire marketing machine surrounding “organic” products. It’s like slapping the word “wholesome” on a box of frosted flakes and convincing people it’s good for them.

That being said, it’s been proven that our lifetime eating habits are developed in the first few years of life. Feeding your baby and toddler a healthy, well rounded diet is the best thing you can do to help them develop life long healthy eating habits.

You’re absolutely right to be skeptical. Organic is a label that has criteria to be met, but depending on where you are and what type of product it is, those criteria can be pretty vague.

The idea is to get products free from pesticides and hormones…basically, but consumers can’t just “trust” that the organic label means what they think it means. Almost any organic product you buy, however, is a better bet than the alternatives. If you’re curious, you can always look up the brand name online and it is usually clear immediately if it’s actually a quality product line.

With the typical meat and dairy you buy in stores, the amount of toxins and hormones you find would blow your mind…and disgust you. It’s pretty typical to find the primary components of jet fuel in milk. I’m not kidding. In addition, the hormones given to dairy cows are all present in the products. Not so great when we have girls developing breasts and menstruating at 8 years old, is it?

It’s not about snobbery or silliness at all. It’s truly a health issue, and I think it’s a very important one. The treatment of animals aside (though our society should be more than ashamed of what goes on in the places that produce our meat and dairy), there are readily-available and competitively priced organic dairy co-ops in America that have open door policies and complete transparency about their products. Organic Valley is the only one I have available to me out here, but in The States, you can do an online search and find brands to look for.

The problem comes in when people who insist on everything that touches their lips being organic and people like PeTA souring the public with their high and mighty attitudes. A lot of people are turned off by the price tag, but the true benefits of eating organic are diminished in the public eye by the stain of association with snobbery, overzealous activism, and disdain from animal rights organizations.

Nice comment Aspen!
I feed my baby Earth’s Best organic baby foods and I like them!
Also, on the back of the rice cereal or oatmeal box they have coupons for $1.00 off of 10 jars.
Which isn’t much but I still use them! I have never compared the price to non-organic foods…I just love coupons!

My husband’s family has a history of colon cancer. Of all the children in his generation, the one cousin who ate the organic, very healthy and low in fat diet was the one who got colon cancer and died from it. If you were a betting person you would never have put money on this person getting cancer. Genetics play just as important a role in health as nutrition.

On another note, last year Whole Foods (in Pennsylvania) was selling organic cherries for $8.99/lb. I chose the regular (pesticide-coated) cherries for $3.99 a pound and washed them well. Sometimes the price differential for “organic” is just too great to justify.

Aspen, Organic Valley milk is ultra-pasteurized, which renders it really unhealthy. Google the process and see for yourself. You’d be better off buying milk locally from farmers. See Campaign for Real Milk.

I think most people raised with good eating habits (even if they veer from them as teens or young adults) will return to those eating habits as adults.